The Cost of Laziness
by Twenty-Two Cents
Summary: People tend to think their smaller decisions won’t have much affect in the long run, but often this isn’t the case. Danny Fenton, with some help from an old friend, has to find this out the hard way. [Temporary hiatus]
1. The Choice

**Summary: People tend to think that smaller decisions won't have much affect in the long run, but often this isn't the case. Danny Fenton, with some help from an old friend, finds this out the hard way.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I just like to borrow other people's worlds and characters.  
**

* * *

"I am the Box Ghost, master of-!"

"Will you just shut up?" Danny groaned at the annoying ghost hovering in his room, falling backwards onto his pillow from the upright position he'd shot abruptly into when his ghost sense had gone off. "I'd like to get some sleep for once without having to deal with ghosts! And I was doing just fine until _you_ showed up. Don't you have a dump to visit or a warehouse to trash?"

"I will not settle for mere garbage dumps or warehouses!" answered the Box Ghost haughtily. "The boxes I control must be sturdy, not falling apart. Beware my high standards!"

"Whatever..." Danny said blearily, starting to fall asleep despite the loudmouthed ghost floating beside his bed. "Just leave me alone. Go find something else to do. I'll fight you later..." With that, he shoved his head under his pillow, thinking, _He can't do any real harm, right?_

Drifting asleep within minutes, he was unaware of the Box Ghost sinking down through the floor to the Fenton Works laboratory and discovering the many boxes of expensive scientific equipment lying around...

* * *

"Son, wake up! It's awful, you have to see this!"

Danny was rudely awakened by his father's agitated bellows, as well as the covers being yanked off him. Turning to look at his clock, he moaned when he saw it was only 7:48 AM. He'd been planning to sleep for at lest three more hours since it was Saturday. "What is it, Dad?" he mumbled.

"No, you have to see it for yourself. Come on!" Jack yanked his son out of bed and set him on his feet. Surprised, Danny woke up a little more, just enough to follow his father down to the lab. What he saw there caused him to come completely awake.

Every box in the basement lab was gone, and every expensive piece of equipment within the missing boxes had been smashed into hundreds of pieces. Green ectoplasmic goo splattered the walls, with a message scrawled on one wall: _The Box Ghost was here! Beware!_ To put it shortly, the laboratory was a complete wreck.

Maddie was standing amid the wreckage, surveying the damage and occasionally plucking salvageable inventions off the floor and dropping them onto a nearby table. When Jack and Danny came down, she turned and looked at them, frowning. "What do you make of this?"

Jack was more than happy to give his opinion -"Honey, I think a ghost did it!"- but Danny stood and stared at the message on the wall, eyes narrowed in anger.

"Danny, is something wrong?" asked Maddie.

He tore his eyes away long enough to respond, "No. Just... surprised, I guess." _Never would have thought he had it in him to cause so much damage in one night. A few hours, even, since it was around four in the morning when he came._

"I think we all are," came a voice from the top of the stairs, and Jazz came down, sitting at the bottom. She raised an eyebrow at Danny, who was standing nearby, still scowling at the wall. Glancing up at her look, he shook his head almost imperceptibly and mouthed, "Later."

"You know we'll need to go to the store and replace all this today, right?" sighed Maddie, clearly upset over the loss of so much equipment.

"Yeah, we probably should. Hey, why don't we take the kids with us? It'll be good for them to see their old man on the job!" said Jack excitedly.

"Hmm," his wife said thoughtfully, "yes, it might do them good to know what sort of things we need around here for when they take over Fenton Works."

Danny couldn't help the laugh that burst out of him. Take over Amity Park's leading ghost hunting business? "That'll be the day," he murmured only loud enough for Jazz to hear.

She smiled slightly and nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. "Never say 'never', Danny. It could happen."

Danny was about to respond that he hadn't even said the word 'never' when Jack clapped his hands together. "Be ready to go in ten minutes, kids!"

Groaning, Danny trudged up the basement stairs after his sister, grumbling mutinously to himself about crazy parents and early mornings.

* * *

Hanging onto his seat of the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle for dear life, Danny swayed back and forth as Jack darted the RV recklessly through traffic. No matter how many times he had ridden with his father, he had still never quite gotten used to his insane driving. "Can you slow down just a little, Dad?"

"PLEASE!" added Jazz frantically as she was bounced all around on the seat next to Danny.

Their pleas for safer driving backfired completely as Jack swung his head around and grinned at them. "Don't be silly- we have to get there before everyone else does!"

Jazz rolled her eyes, muttering sarcastically, "Because everyone in town wants to go to the hardware store to buy ghost equipment..."

Danny would have laughed if he hadn't been hanging on for dear life.

In the front passenger seat, Maddie was the only one who was watching the road. She was also the only one to see an elated Box Ghost appear out of nowhere and toss a rather large box of oranges in front of the RV, snickering evilly. "Jack, watch out!" she shrieked, grabbing her husband and turning him back around in his seat.

Jack swerved into the other lane to avoid the tacks, but ended up right in front of oncoming traffic. A startled driver before them pounded the horn of his semi truck, but the noise was drowned out by the screams of the Fentons in their RV.


	2. A Visit From An Old Friend

Danny acted without hesitation, closing his eyes and gripping the seat as tight as he could, going intangible. Time seemed to stop as the wave of intangibility spreading out from him seemed to crawl over the length of the Ghost Assault Vehicle. A split second before the two large vehicles would have collided, the RV phased directly through it, and Jack swerved back into the proper lane of traffic, safely turning into the parking lot of the hardware store. 

Exhausted, Danny let go of the seat, and the RV faded back to tangibility just before Maddie and Jack twisted around in their seats to peer into the back.

"Are you kids all right?" demanded Maddie, an almost hysterical glint in her eyes. Jazz nodded, but her son's eyes were still closed, and he was breathing heavily. "Danny? _Danny!_"

He nodded slowly. Turning the entire Ghost Assault Vehicle intangible for that long without a good night's sleep to back him up had taken a lot out of him. Opening his eyes, he managed a small grin. "I-I'm okay, Mom. Really." And he was. Danny had always been a quick healer, and much more so since the accident that gave him his ghost powers, so he was able to breathe normally within a few seconds, even if he still felt a little lightheaded. To demonstrate, he opened the door of the RV and hopped out, putting a hand on the side to steady himself at first, but taking it away quickly.

His mother still didn't look convinced. "Are you sure?"

"Yep," he answered simply. "I'm sure."

She, Jack, and Jazz followed him out of their RV, the latter standing beside him and shooting him a grateful look. Jack came up behind them, clapping one hand on his daughter's shoulder and the other on his son's. "I'm sorry, kids. I should've been more careful," he said with an abashed look.

"It's okay," they answered together, and Danny added guiltily, "It... wasn't your fault." _It was mine,_ he added silently. _I shouldn't have let the Box Ghost go last night._

"Yes, honey, it's all right," said Maddie, patting her husband's large back.

Jack brightened instantly, and one who didn't know him better would have thought he had completely forgotten what had happened. "Okay, then! Let's go in!" He bounded forward through the doors of the hardware store, his wife trotting to keep up.

After checking that no one else but she and her brother were around, Jazz suddenly hugged her brother tightly, almost lifting him completely off the ground. "That was so brave, Danny! I'm so proud of you!"

"Jazz," her brother wheezed, "can't... breathe..."

"Oh," she said, quickly releasing him. "Sorry. But you were really brave, risking Mom and Dad seeing you."

Danny blushed guiltily, staring at the ground. "I did what I had to... because of what I didn't do last night."

Jazz lifted an eyebrow in suspicious confusion. "Huh? Danny, is there something you're not telling me?"

"I'll tell you inside," he sighed, motioning for her to follow him into the store, where their parents were looking curiously out the window to see what was keeping them.

* * *

_Jazz was surprisingly understanding about the whole thing,_ mused Danny as he climbed into his bed later that night around ten o'clock. _No lectures about being lazy or anything. Maybe she knows I already feel bad. And it was nice of her to help me capture the Box Ghost after dinner, too._ Aloud, he sighed, "Finally, I actually get to go to sleep before one in the morning! I just hope a ghost doesn't show up or something..."

A familiar voice echoed through the room. "Sorry to disappoint you, Danny, but we need to talk."

Danny shot upright instantly, muttering, "Just had to say it, didn't I? I just had to jinx myself..." When he squinted into the darkness, he could make out a shadowy figure beside his bed. Leaning over to turn on his lamp, he was surprised when the light illuminated the features of his friend and ally, currently in his middle-aged man form; "Clockwork? Is that-"

"Yes, it is I," interrupted the Master of Time simply, folding his arms across his chest and inclining his head slightly in greeting.

"I'm willing to bet this isn't only a social visit," said Danny wryly, quickly recovering from his initial surprise.

"And you'd win that bet," agreed Clockwork. "I just don't have the _time_ to make such visits very often." He paused as if waiting for something, but the younger ghost just stared blankly at him. "Why do I even bother with humor... He's fourteen," muttered Clockwork to himself.

"That was supposed to be funny?" asked Danny, raising an eyebrow. He chortled. "I suppose you don't have much time for working on your jokes, huh?"

Clockwork cleared his throat in a business-like manner, though his eyes twinkled in amusement and he switched to his child form. "Yes, well... I'm here to talk about you, Danny. Come with me."

"Where?" questioned the human boy.

Clockwork smiled and spread his hands in front of him, answering patiently, "To my lair, of course. Where else would we go?"

Shrugging sheepishly, Danny climbed out of bed and changed into his ghost form without his usual battle cry of 'I'm goin' ghost!' He looked expectantly at Clockwork. When the ghost of time said nothing, he shrugged and began to phase through the floor, but a word from the other ghost stopped him in his tracks.

"Wait."

"Why? Aren't we taking-?"

"The portal? You forget," Clockwork sighed, "I'm the Master of Time. I have at my disposal much quicker ways of travel. Or would you like to traverse the entire length of the Ghost Zone, a process which might take up to an hour of valuable time in which you might otherwise be sleeping?"

Danny grinned. "Uh, no, that's all right. What did you have in mind?"

Clockwork thought, and not for the first time during their conversation, that he might have been better off simply spiriting the boy away to his lair and explaining later. But he chided himself silently, reminding himself that it was ultimately more fun this way. Being the Master of Time, he mused, though it demanded a great deal of waiting and watching, did have its share of interesting moments, most of which involved the quirky ghost boy who had so upended the normally smooth flow of time. After this short mental discourse with himself, Clockwork became aware that Danny was floating beside him, eyeing his time staff with the natural curiosity and naïveté that made him such an enjoyable charge.

"Brace yourself," warned Clockwork as he pushed a button on the top of his staff. Instantly, the two ghosts were whirling in large clockwise circles. Danny had the distinct feeling that he was trying to hold on to the minute hand that was traveling at a very high speed around the face of a giant clock. As abruptly as the feeling came, however, it vanished, and Danny and Clockwork were standing beside a familiar swirling green portal. The entire scene seemed to be spinning around him. Clockwork touched his arm, and the spinning halted at once.

"Wow," was all Danny could say as he gaped openly at Clockwork.

"It takes a little getting used to, but it is a most effective method of travel."

"Yeah, I guess it is."

Clapping his hands together and switching to his man form, the Master of Time said briskly, "Well, time is a terrible thing to waste, and I'm afraid this will not be pleasant for you, so I'll get straight to business. I have something very, very important to show you."

* * *

**Based on the summary and what's happened so far, can you guess what it is Clockwork wants to show Danny? I hope I'm not making it too obvious. Please review, even if it's only one sentence, or even one word! Reviews make me oh-so-happy!**


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